HIRSCH, FISCHL:

Hebrew bookseller; died at Berlin June 5, 1899. About 1860 he settled at Halberstadt, and founded a Jewish printing and publishing business. He soon abandoned this to devote himself entirely to the sale of Hebrew books and manuscripts. He rapidly acquired a wide knowledge of the literature with which he was commercially concerned, and, though near-sighted almost to blindness, traveled extensively, collecting valuable old prints and manuscripts which he afterward sold to the principal Hebrew libraries in Europe. When the collection of Hebrew books now in the British Museum was being formed, J. Zedner resorted to Hirsch and acquired from him most of the incunabula as well as the more precious of the books of later date. The Bodleian Library and the Rosenthal Library at Amsterdam owe their most valuable acquisitions to his unerring intelligence. About 1885 Hirsch removed to Frankfort-on-the-Main, whence, about 1891, he went to Berlin. In 1897 he paid his last visit to the British Museum.

Bibliography:

Catalogue of Books for Sale by Fischl Hirsch, with an introduction by S. van Straalen, 1900.